Supply-chain mapping for the EU forced labour ban

The Guidelines list multi-tier supplier maps with facility names, addresses and geolocation among what an authority may request, and say an inability to provide traceability information weighs negatively. A map is therefore evidence, and its gaps are findings.

The platform's map is a table rather than a diagram, because what the request asks for is rows: for each facility, its name, address, geolocation, tier, the component it feeds and the source of the claim that it sits there. Six of nine rows in the worked example arrive from the EUDR plot register and the PPWR supplier data with their evidence attached; the map marks them by origin so an inherited row reads differently from a new claim. Two things make it a forced-labour map rather than a generic one. Each component carries its share of the product, because Article 20 lets a decision be limited to a replaceable part and the share of the suspect part is a prioritisation criterion. And each row carries its own state, so a flag on a tier-3 spinner shows on the yarn it feeds and not on the whole garment. Where the known chain stops, the map says so — it does not infer a tier from a pattern seen elsewhere.